The Polish Book Institute

The Polish Book Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute London, the Polish Cultural Institute New York and the Polish Institute New Delhi announce that the Found in Translation Award for 2016 goes to Piotr Florczyk for his translation of Anna Świrszczyńska’s volume of poetry Building the Barricade (Budowałam barykadę), published by Tavern Books.

Piotr Florczyk is a poet and translator of contemporary Polish literature into English. Apart from Świrszczyńska, his translations include selections of the poetry of Wojciech Bonowicz, Julian Kornhauser, Jacek Gutorow, Jarosław Mikołajewski, Paweł Marcinkiewicz and Dariusz Sośnicki.

The Found in Translation Award is granted every year to the best translation of Polish literature into English published in book form in the previous year. This year’s jury was composed of Bill Johnston (last year’s winner) as well as Robert Szaniawski, Anna Domańska, Roland Chojnacki and Dariusz Jaworski (the directors of the PCI London, the PCI New York, the PI New Delhi, and the Polish Book Institute, respectively). The winner receives a cash prize of 16,000 złotys, a diploma and a three-month residency in Kraków, funded by the Polish Book Institute.

The award ceremony will take place 13 March 2017 at the British Library during the London Book Fair, at which Poland will be Market Focus Country.

Previous winners of the prize have been:
Bill Johnston, for his translation of the poems of Tadeusz Różewicz (2008)
Antonia Lloyd-Jones, for her translation of Last Supper by Paweł Huelle (2009)
Danuta Borchardt, for her translation of Pornografia by Witold Gombrowicz (2010)
Clare Cavanagh and Stanisław Barańczak for their translation of Here by Wisława Szymborska (2011)
Joanna Trzeciak, for her translation of the poems of Tadeusz Rózewicz (2012)
Antonia Lloyd-Jones for the whole of her translation output in the year preceding the award (2013)
Philip Boehm, for his translation of Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall (2014)
Ursula Philips, for her translation of the novel Choucas by Zofia Nałkowska (2015)
Bill Johnston, for his translation of Twelve Stations by Tomasz Różycki (2016)